Christopher Blog

Thus we get to the hardest part of this recording process (for me:) Hand drumming.

I am not up to the performance aspect of it yet. Just trying to capture the natural sound of each drum has been frustrating. The rule of thumb for this project has been to avoid compressors at all times. It can be done, but it takes good performance technique and mic placement to do such a thing. Haven’t had any luck yet. I’ll keep trying until I find the right placement. When I mean Mic Placement: I’m talking about the world of centimeters, not feet or distance. The general rule is place a mic near the head of the drum and one underneath to capture the bass/body.

The djembe I’m using (an animal skinned drum) is very unruly with rich overtones and punchy bass. Perhaps the spirit within the drum does not approve…Perhaps it longs to be with a New Age artist, safely away from my dungeon of megalomania and chain smoking.

Day 27: Nothing happened. Just bloody tired and exhausted from consensus reality rigors.

Day 28: 

Sometimes there is this awful latency when you are recording alone:

Where it takes a few days to figure out whether what you recorded was any good or not. Your perspective gets a bit distorted, especially after you’ve been tracking for a very long time and you’re tired. It’s times like this I wish I had an engineer/producer to immediately identify problem areas.

I let a day pass and realized the upright bass tracks weren’t any good. They were sloppy and not mic’d as well as I originally thought.

I originally used a Studio Projects C1 to capture the body sound of the bass. Because it’s omnidirectional, it picked up some offensive sonic artifacts in the room. This time I used the AKG C1000’s. Time and time again they are proving to be the winners. Spent about 5 hours overnight redoing the bass which yielded much better results. But who knows how I’ll feel in a day or so when I re-listen again.

Upright bass tracks have been completed and gosh darn was it bloody and painful. The end results are good though. I got the best sound I could out of it with the budget and skills available to me.

Now, it wasn’t bloody and painful like a hard rock/heavy metal band press release such as:

 OH WOW! TRAX ARE DONE! I BLED OUT PLAYING MY BASS ON THIS SUPER DEATH RUMBLE TRACK THAT WILL MAKE U GET HARSH TRIBAL TATS AND BLOW SHIT UP!

HOLY FUCK MAAAAN! I’M GONNA PHOTOSHOP FLAMES ONTO MY FUCKING FACE!

It was more like I busted through some callouses because I don’t play bass on a regular basis and the resulting blood was akin to what any inexperienced or out of practice musician would endure. So instead of good Japanese gore, you get safe hollywood cut scenes.

And the last song worked on was hardly heavy. Intricate? Yes. But there are no references to superchargers or assault rifles. You weep. I know.

The last tracks to do before the vocals are the hand percussion which will start right after I type all this nonsense out. They will take the longest to do.

Today was a snow day. 2+ foot snow drifts. I saw no point going out. While I was outside surveying my own little planet Hoth, my deficient neighbor with the affinity for urban music uttered a shred of wisdom that I hope you all take to heart:

`Don’t wear ankle socks out here brahhhh, my feet be soaked.’

 Indeed.

Upright bass practice. Tomorrow I start laying the tracks down. I have this behemoth for 2 weeks. I hope some interesting ideas are created with it during this time.However, I’m a bit apprehensive right now. I’m about 10 days behind schedule with this recording. I was hoping to be at the vocal stage at this point. Oh well, not much I can do about that at this point. If I start rushing I know the results will be akin to living off the floor of a vomitorium for sustanence.Watched the last 5 minutes of the Super Bowel, New England’s failure was delicious.

Do you know how much of a bitch it is to stuff an upright bass into a vehicle?

Very.

Jazz, bebop, swing, pretentious earnest irreverant indie shitmouth musicians, I empathize with you. How in Hades do you get that thing around to gigs? Do you snap the neck off and reglue it before each show? Do you all own a partridge family school bus?

Renting the bass went without incident. Rather disappointed really. No interesting stories to share this time. Perhaps it’s because I went to a different Long and McQuade. The one I went to this time was smack dab in the middle of an industrial park that is pretending to be a city.

ROCKBAND TIP: If you are playing the drums, do not use the drum sticks they supply in the box. Go out and buy brush sticks. They’re low impact on the drum heads. Apparently the ROCKBAND drums are very fragile because they were rushed in and out of production.

Day 22

I picked up Rock Band. Whatever I ever said about Guitar Hero does not apply to this game. It doth rule.

I would classify this game as `edutainment’ for the simple reason that you need excellent rhythm for the drumkit and the vocals. Unless you’re one of those insufferable tools who wails away as quickly as possible on the drums so you never miss the beat given to you.

There are 2 instruments that I avoid playing: The Tabla and the Trap Drum Kit. I don’t have the coordination for the good old American Drum Kit. Rockband comes with a drum kit and I lept at the chance to learn some of the basics of drumming. How this is germane to the Torched Laughter recording is this: I have massive amounts of percussion to do in the coming week. My timing is admittedly rusty save for when I play the wind drum. Why not have some fun and practice at the same time?

 The ROCKBAND kit is sort of set up like a real small kit: You play the snare with your left hand, hihat on the right and the kick drum with your foot. The songs are set up that you have to actually hit the drums just like the original drumming in the songs. (more or less when you are on expert)

 The vocals piss me right off. If you’re an R&B singer who likes to drag every note into the ground you will fail. Pitch isn’t an issue, but again, you have to have perfect timing. Sadly when I started enjoying myself singing, that’s when I started failing horribly. That whole FEEL thing gets in the way real quick.

Anyway, that’s all for now. May write more about the Rockband experience later on. Actually have to work at some point.

Programmers: Is there away to permanently remove the Yeah Yeah Yeah song out of the game? Let me know.

Finished up the wind drum tracks. Much joy. I’m continuing the use of the AKG C1000 mics for pretty much all the drums. Aside from that, not much else regarding this day. Then again I am writing this 4 days later. I’m slipping, I know.